All documents that are not properly preserved suffer degradation over time, and even the most rigorous preservation techniques can only slow degradation of physical documents. Degradation can occur for a variety of reasons, such as time, improper storage, poor environmental conditions, damage, and so on. Documents vulnerable to such stresses and degradation can contain valuable information, as in the case of found military/terrorism-related documents, historical documents, scanned legal documents, etc. Computerized scanning and imaging of such documents can “freeze” the state of the document at the time of imaging. The invention described enhances the frozen state, that is, increases the legibility of the document.
Additionally, some, documents are not highly legible at creation. Such, conditions can occur due to improper typing, improper writing, or improper media. The legibility of these documents can likewise be enhanced.